Prior to Software-Defined Networking (SDN) enabled technologies, network service providers offered bandwidth services as pre-defined packages of levels of service. In a typical scenario 100 illustrated in FIG. 1, internetwork 105 comprises a number of interconnected switches 110-130. End users 140 and 150 connect from their user home network to a switch at the edge of internetwork 105 via respective links 135 and 145. Each end user is only offered services to increase or decrease bandwidth over the link from the user home network to the service provider network. Users have no ability to order guaranteed end-to-end connection service with other users. Even if, in the example 100 scenario illustrated in FIG. 1, both users 140 and 150 increased their user home network to internet connection (135, 145) bandwidth to the maximum possible, the service provider network 105 still provides only best effort services. Even if the network service provider wanted to offer such ad hoc on-demand bandwidth services, the effort and time required to provision such between two users far surpasses the users' or the provider's willingness to spend such time and effort.
With SDN, and with the BoD concepts described below according to embodiments of the invention, the network service provider has the ability to offer, as an additional overlay, BoD services to users who want or require guaranteed services, such as remote diagnosis needs, or who simply require a guaranteed highly quality video call with a remote client, for example. The BoD approach allows the network service provider to control the interswitch connections 151-155 illustrated in FIG. 1 with SDN technologies to provide a real-time and on-demand end-to-end connection.